


Losing Teeth

by halfpastdead



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Family Drama, Gen, Ghosts, One Shot, Teeth, Transformation, everyone's doing it!, i gave in i gave him fangs okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:47:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29594391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfpastdead/pseuds/halfpastdead
Summary: The Fentons were now on day four of living with the ghost boy. Four days of pretending not to stare. Four days of trying to forget their interactions with Phantom— the days when Danny still kept his secret. It was hard to look in those green eyes and not recall the vitriol, or the whir of an ecto gun.After spending days stuck as Phantom, Danny undergoes some unwelcome changes.
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Jack Fenton, Danny Fenton & Maddie Fenton, Jack Fenton/Maddie Fenton
Comments: 8
Kudos: 179





	Losing Teeth

Maddie was pouring a cup of coffee when a flash of white crept through the corner of her eye. She turned to face her son, leaning against the countertop. 

“Still nothing?” she chirped. He sighed.

“Still nothing.”

Danny clutched the blanket over his shoulders, shrouding himself in it. He hadn’t expected to be shy about the fact that he’d been wearing his stupid black hazmat suit and stupid boots and stupid white gloves for almost a whole stupid week. It’s not like he didn’t fit right in with his freakish parents.

He couldn’t change back.

The Fentons were now on day four of living with the ghost boy. Four days of pretending not to stare. Four days of trying to forget their interactions with _Phantom—_ the days when Danny still kept his secret. It was hard to look in those green eyes and not recall the vitriol, or the whir of an ecto gun.

Maddie and Jack’s usual morning greeting had been replaced with nagging: “Any updates?”, “How are you feeling, champ?”, and “Any luck yet?”.

Because if he’d be able to change back, he’d definitely be hanging around FentonWorks as a ghost. Totally.

Maddie ruffled Danny’s hair as she headed back to the lab, making his skin crawl. He shut the fridge and retreated upstairs with a bowl of cereal, grateful to have dodged his dad; he always turned invisible a millisecond too late. His mom was quiet, calculating. His old man overcompensated with stupid jokes and flinched whenever Danny moved unexpectedly.

He phased through his bedroom door, which he always kept shut after the accident. Easy enough to blame on teenage angst. He’d spent the past couple days in there, after realizing his parents wasn’t going to stop looking at him like he didn’t belong. Not until he could change back, anyway.

He climbed back into bed, blanket still hanging off his shoulders. He got started on his bowl of cereal, wondering in the back of his mind whether his family thought the logo on his chest was stupid when the thing caught his eye. After four days, he was starting to feel like it was. He knew they hated the superhero act, always complaining about Phantom being arrogant. Just another thing he’d never hear an apology for. Any amendments to the Fentons’ views on ghosts went unspoken.

Then, one bite _hurt_.

Danny let his breakfast spill from his mouth— it wasn’t a normal kind of pain, like a broken tooth or scratched gum. It felt electric. He spat and out came one of his canines, root still attached. He held it in his gloved hand, eyes wide as it melted into green goo and dissipated in seconds.

Another hot zap in his mouth and another tooth dropped onto his tongue, followed by the acidic taste of ectoplasm. He leapt out of bed, flinging his bedspread and cereal bowl onto the floor. He barely heard the porcelain shatter as he hunched over his dresser, face inches from the mirror. He pressed his thumb into one of the gaps, stomach churning. His lower canines felt warm and staticky as they rose from their place in his mouth and fell backwards into it. Danny’s breath hitched in his throat and he plucked them out, staring dumbfounded as they melted away.

Then he collapsed. Crumpled in on himself. His face was hot. His ears rung and popped. He opened his mouth to shout for help and regretted it immediately, the small movement exacerbating the pressure in his teeth.

The gaps were filling in. He could feel it with his tongue. His teeth were back, and they were _sharp_.

“No—!” he heaved, room spinning as he forced himself upright. “Fuck!”

He made it high enough off the floor to look himself in the eyes again.

Danny was grey. A dark, lifeless grey. His eyes cast a green glow on his cheeks. He was deathly silent. His mouth throbbed — must mean he still had a pulse— but he didn’t look alive. A fine mist wafted from his body, visible only in the white light that his form omitted. Danny didn’t notice, though. Four elongated, pointy canines were growing rapidly. He whimpered and closed his mouth. This didn’t stop them. They pressed into his gums, the sensation making him feel sick.

And his hair— did his hair look different? Like he was on the moon. Like gravity had loosened its grip only a little.

Then, he saw the ears. He turned his head slowly, straining his eyes to look at them, jaw dropped. Like Bullet’s. Or Plasmius’s. Or _his—_ that warped version of his future self. Pointed. His fingers hovered over them— they radiated heat. That same warm, electric energy that was stinging his mouth. The cartilage was slowly curling in on itself, folding like burning paper. Elongating. He found himself trying to squish them back into their normal shape, wincing at the pain.

Had he met a single ghost that looked like this who wasn’t a jerk? He was wracking his mind and drawing a blank. That’s who he sort of looked like. His asshole 24-year-old ghost self. His eyes began to sting, but he willed the tears away, trying to squash his panic. He traced his fingers along one of his ears, which had grown about half a foot in height. It didn’t hurt as much now, just a dull ache. He’d nearly forgotten about his teeth, too preoccupied by his ruined face. His ears stopped ringing and he noticed his mouth was still throbbing.

There was absolutely no reason for ghosts to have teeth like these. No need to eat— anyway, they weren’t like an animal’s. He bared them at the mirror, flushing immediately. The teeth were a stark white against the purplish inside of his mouth.

That’s why. To look scary.

People had screamed at Danny before, when he wasn’t as well-known in Amity Park. He was just another ghost then. He could imagine the headlines now. Oh, they were going to hate this. He fucking hated this.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. Tried to reach for his human self. Nothing.

Danny pressed his fingers to his wrist for good measure. Still alive, or so it seemed.

What would it look like if he died, anyway? He thought of his organs dissolving into green mush, his bones following suit. Then he’d be all ectoplasm. The other ghosts would laugh over how he couldn’t break anything anymore, how he used to be the famous freak.

Shit, maybe he was dying. Maybe he wouldn’t know for sure until his mom had him strapped to the observation table.

“Danny...” The doorknob moved and Danny vanished. Maddie slipped into his room, frowning at the mess on the floor. “Sulk in your room and break my bowls,” she muttered, nervously wondering why he hadn’t started cleaning it up. “I know you’re in here.”

Danny’s lip quivered. It was now, or on the news next time trouble struck. He let himself become visible, feet landing firmly by his dresser.

Maddie blanched. Danny stared at her. She seemed like she was looking right through him.Both glued to the spot for what felt like ages.

“Jack—!” She hollered, leaning back slightly. Danny cringed.

“Why’d you call him?” His voice cracked and he flickered out of sight for a moment. It happened involuntarily sometimes, when he was in ghost form.

“Look at your face!”

Danny stiffened, unable to break eye contact. Maddie crept toward him. She clasped a hand over her mouth.

“I know,” he muttered, green ectoplasm pooling in his cheeks. A ghost with a fucking circulatory system.

“Your ears—“ she reached for Danny, but he ducked out of the way. His ears fell back, flush against his skull. She pointed toward his mirror. They put his fear on full display, like an animal's. His hands shot up to cover them.

“Fuck!” He cried, Maddie grabbed his wrist and pulled it away. She yanked the glove off her left hand and pressed two fingers to Danny’s jugular. He squirmed.

“Hold still,” she growled. She exhaled when she felt his steady heartbeat. Danny glanced over Maddie’s shoulder, locking eyes with his father, looming in the doorway. Jack had expected to finally see the child he knew, finally. Not even close. His face had gone white, his brows furrowed with disgust or anger.

“Suffering— What did you _do_?” Jack bellowed at his son.

“Nothfing, I—!” Danny took a small step back, like a scared kid.

“You look like a ghost!”

“Apt observation, Jack.” Maddie realized she was still squeezing Danny’s wrist. A little intangibility and he freed himself from her grip, green eyes blazing.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“If I knew, he would’ve been back to himself days ago, don’t you think?”

“He’s not—?”

“Dead?” Danny spat defensively, backing up against his bedroom wall. “Not yet.”

“Hold on, son,” Jack bent down slightly to face Danny. He looked him up and down, Danny's nonhuman appearance giving him chills. “We can fix this.”

Danny froze. _Fix_ it. Maddie knew Jack had said the wrong thing. She had more tact. Danny’d bet she was thinking the same exact thing, though. He would put money on it.

“Are you _trying_ to scare him away?”

“ _Me_? C’mon, Mads—”

“He can’t help it!”

“And how am I supposed to know that?”

Danny flinched, his sore ears sensitive to his parents’ raised voices. His head was beginning to spin, nausea spiking.

“You come in here and start _yelling_ at him—”

“You always say _yelling_ — I was just _asking_ him—”

Eyes on him. Darting from him to each other. Their bickering echoed in his skull until he couldn’t make sense of the words anymore. His lungs felt like lead, mouth dry from holding it slightly ajar. They kept _looking_ at him - otherwise he felt invisible. He looked at his gloved hands. They were familiar. He could see them.

He didn’t need to be in this room anymore. It was a second before he remembered how to breathe, another before he clipped through the floor and shot out the kitchen window.

Maddie huffed. “Great. Now he’s gone.”

“So that’s my fault, too?”

“‘You look like a ghost’?” She repeated, the words dripping off her tongue like the cruelest insult. “I try to be _so_ careful about what I say to him—”

“He knows what he is!”

“I thought we agreed this _isn’t_ what he is.”

“And I thought it wasn’t supposed to make a difference.” He snapped.

“Does it?”

Danny clenched his fists. Even while intangible, he could feel his fangs puncturing his gums. He gritted his teeth, eyes watering.

Jack didn’t answer. Danny felt the urge to kick something. Knock one of these stupid ancient boards out of the wall of their brownstone. Topple FentonWorks and crush the portal that did this to him. The mental image of his house crumbling and smoking stung him, scared him. An all-ghost version of himself once wished for the same thing.

He didn’t want to go to Sam or Tucker’s. He didn’t want to go to the Ghost Zone. Everywhere he flew he saw people who wouldn’t allow him to stay in one place for long. Before he knew it, he’d reached town’s edge, marked by the cheesy billboard that oversold his haunted, dangerous home.

Danny’s white glow was the only light source inside that billboard. There was just enough space between the big wooden slats to fit his shoulders, if he hunched slightly. He tucked his knees to his chest. Never any traffic coming into Amity Park. Quiet.

Danny Fenton sat in complete darkness. He exhaled shakily, pressing his forehead to his knees and fixating on the smell of denim and the sound of his heart in his ears. He was back.

Alive for now. Human for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorta based on my hc that Danny becomes more ghostly the more time passes since the accident. Really just a scenario that I've been looking at for too long.


End file.
